Since the early 1990's the National Weather Service (NWS) has been broadcasting digitized weather warning header information concerning the nature and scope of the content of the alert message following the header. The digitized header is transmitted in a special AFSK data format, called Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME). SAME is a subset of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) as defined in Part 11 of the FCC rules set out in the United States Code of Federal Regulations.
This system uses specific ASCII character event codes for data fields such as severe weather events, geographic area of the alert time etc. Sophisticated receivers and decoders are required to recover and decode the digital header information.
A number of patents have been granted on various aspects of the SAME system including U.S. Pat. No. 5,548,323 to Callahan; U.S. Pat. No. 5,917,887 to Fesler; U.S. Pat. No. 5,995,553 to Crandall; and B1 U.S. Pat. No. 5,121,430 to Ganzer. Other emergency alert decoding schemes were disclosed in Martinez, patent U.S. Pat. No. 4,415,771.
Alphanumeric paging, alphanumeric paging terminals, the activation of alphanumeric paging thorough alphanumeric paging terminals by alarm systems, automatic alphanumeric paging of weather, and the activation of alarm systems by decoded alert signals are all known in the art.
Examples of premise alarm systems reporting alarm status to a central station are taught by U.S. Pat. No. 4,141,006 to Braxton; U.S. Pat. No. 3,523,162 to Streit; U.S. Pat. No. 3,761,914 to Hardy et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 3,686,654 to Judlowe; U.S. Pat. No. 3,714,646 to Nurnberg et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 3,855,590 to Neuner and U.S. Pat. No. 3,855,456 to Summers et al.